


Five-Ever

by Watergirl1968



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Eremin - Freeform, Fluff, M/M, Mixed Cultures, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 18:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9250508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Watergirl1968/pseuds/Watergirl1968
Summary: In 1979 Toronto, Eren and Armin are students...they share a blend of cultures, of faiths, and a special chosen family. Sticky Christmas kisses.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a little Red Door Supper Club eremin side-shot. For reader who have not read Red Door (or who may not be into fics which feature a bunch of shipped characters in the same fic), Eren, a student chef, works in his uncle's Moroccan supper club, which is also a favourite haunt of the gay community. Armin is a young engineering student. They're finding their way through life, and love, in 1970's Toronto, a time of emerging and diverse cultures in the city.

Lars Arlert lowered himself into one of _Moulay_ Ibrahim's armchairs.

"I don't know what hurts more," he grumbled, "Sitting down or getting up."

 "I'm not sore," Ibrahim held his hands out, palms-up. "But then again, I work every day."

 "Then again," Lars' blue eyes twinkled, "you didn't get shot seven times".

 Moulay Ibrahim nodded, stroking his moustache thoughtfully.

 "Then again," he replied, "you didn't scale the embassy wall at Tripoli."

 Lars snorted. "Neither did you."

 "That's enough. It's Yule." Ibrahim concluded.

 "Yes," Lars pulled a small flask out of his vest, uncorked it and took a swig. "Cheers, _Moulay_. I know you don't want any."

 "That's why you're sore," Ibrahim pointed out

 "Uncle!" he looked up. Eren, his nephew, had been trying to get his attention. "Please. It's time for the candles."

 It wasn't as though Ibrahim was going to randomly offer prayers to a stump of wood in the middle of winter. However, he respected the little tradition that the three kids had.

 A yule log, Mikasa well knew, wasn't meant to be kept. It was meant to be seasoned, dusted, blessed, and then thrown cheerfully onto a fire.

However, she'd fashioned a permanent yule log, as a sacred object. For herself, and Armin and Eren. She'd found a length of hardwood, and had Armin drill three holes into it, to hold three candles. She'd flattened the bottom, to stabilize it. Then, she'd left it on her altar for an entire moon cycle. She'd carved symbols into it; a crescent, a spiral, an eye.

Once a year, Armin, Eren and Mikasa celebrated their own version of Yule, the winter solstice.

Mikasa, the eldest, lit the first candle. On her enlistment form, the navy had wanted to know her religion. There hadn't been a checkbox for Wiccan. She'd simply checked 'other', certain that Armin or Eren would know how to send her to the next world.

Eren lit the second candle. For him, Yule was a reaffirmation of the love he shared with Mikasa and with Armin; it was a chance to honour each of them. He remembered them daily, in his prayers.

Armin lit the last candle. His belief, although pragmatic, ran deep. He'd pulled Eren out of bed on many a night, bringing him up to the rooftop, and entreating him to look up.

"We are tiny," he'd breathe. "It is _huge_. We don't know where, if, or how it ends. Its patterns are repeated, in nature, in tiny objects, even in cells. Eren," his penetrating eyes would fix on his love, "Eren, there is something out there...that gives an _order_ to things...something too immense and profound for us to comprehend."

 "It's sad, that we're so tiny." Eren remarked.

 "No," Armin breathed, "that's just it. It's not sad. It's beautiful. And humbling."

 The three young people lit their candles and stood still, hands clasped.

 "Until next year, then," Mikasa said softly.

 "I don't like the letting-go part," Eren smiled.

 "Well, I'm getting hungry," Armin concluded.

 __________

_Lars Arlert had never kept Christmas, but he began to do so for his little grandson, Armin. He wasn't a religious man, but he knew the value of shared community. He'd put up a tree and made rum-soaked cakes. He'd sat at the kitchen table with Armin, and helped him to print ARMIN inside of Christmas cards, and mail them to family and friends._

_He'd taken Armin to see the Christmas windows at Eaton's and Simpson's, on Queen Street. Afterward, the'd go to Howard Johnson's for fishbowl sundaes. Between the magical, mechanically-animated figures in the windows and the sugar punch from the ice-cream, Armin would bounce all the way home to Cabbagetown._

_Lars was European, so Christmas Eve was, by tradition, the big celebration night. Ibrahim would bring Eren and Mikasa over, and they would laugh and shriek and run around the house until Lars' nerves could take no more._

_Lomax Green often joined them._

_After the children had passed out on the floor in their onesies, Lars, Ibrahim and Lomax would sit together. Ibrahim would pour tea for them, with ritual care, and the three old soldiers would sit quietly, as the snow fell outside._

__________

After their Yule dinner, Armin and Eren crunched through the snow, back to their apartment above the Red Door Supper Club. They walked along Spadina Avenue, the windows of the Chinese restaurants cheerily fogged up. The streetcar rolled past them, eerily quiet on its steel rails.

"Listen," Eren smiled. "the market is so quiet."

"Look up," Armin stopped. He opened his mouth, catching a few snowflakes on his tongue. 

"Can't see many stars in Chinatown," Eren commented.

"They're _there_ ," Armin said quietly.

__________

December 24th was always a busy night at the Supper Club. Eren had both Raj and Teion, Lomax Green's son, in the kitchen with him. Armin sat at the lunch counter, trying to light some of Lars' Christmas cake on fire.

The celebration wound down around eleven at night, as the guests staggered home, arm in arm, singing Judy Garland.

Eren was counting on the fact that Armin was like clockwork, and a creature of habit. They'd gone upstairs to their apartment. Eren had washed, and then gone to offer the last prayers of the evening. He'd entered the room, and then exited again. He was nervous, and his fear had no place in his prayers. He took a deep breath. He smiled. There it was. The deep peace that never deserted him.

Armin and his friend Jean had made a Christmas tree out of scrap metal, which lit up with fibre optics. The tree winked merrily. Eren put tea on.

Armin, who's been reading, got up then, disappearing into his work room. Eren waited, his heart beating in his ears.

Armin came back, offered Eren a sad little smile, and tacked something to the bookshelf. It looked like a grey rag. It was, in fact, a small sock, which had once been white. Across it, nearly picked away, was Armin's name, spelled out in glitter glue. An A, R and I were still legible.

"It's all I have from my mom," Armin had explained years ago. "If I don't forget her, perhaps she won't forget me, either."

Eren approached Armin, gently enfolding him from behind. "Come to bed," he kissed the pale head.

__________

It wasn't a prayer, exactly; upon waking, Armin would, invariably, smell coffee. Or breakfast. Or peppermint scrub. Or the oil furnace, as it growled to life. These things meant that he was wanted, and cared-for. Loved. He would close eyes and give thanks, for Eren.

Sure enough, on Christmas morning, 1979, Armin awoke to the the smell of breakfast. Eren had baked figs and orange pastries.

Armin padded out into the kitchen. Eren was at the counter. Armin wrapped his arms around him sleepily, laying his cheek between Eren's shoulder blades. He inhaled Eren's warmth, and sighed.

"Go sit," Eren nudged him.

"Mmh. Where are my glasses?"

"On the coffee table. Go sit."

Armin crawled onto the sofa, rolling himself into the blanket that he found there, trying to wake up.

Eren came out with a square blue plate. On it, five little figs, in a row. Five orange puffs. Five candied almonds.

Armin grinned sleepily. "That's so pretty."

Eren put the plate down.

"Can I sit with you?" Armin asked.

Eren nodded. Armin crawled onto Eren's lap.

He looked at his orderly breakfast. He took one of the orange blossoms, popping it into his mouth and chewing noisily.

The chewing stopped. "Eren."

"What?"

"There is something in my sock."

Eren exhaled. "Oh?"

Armin squirmed around to look at him. "What's in my sock?"

"I dunno."

Armin got up, untacked the little stocking and carried it back to the couch.

He fished inside it, pulling out a small pouch.

The pouch jingled. Armin held the pouch to his ear. "Is it from you?"

Eren nodded.

Inside of the pouch, was a stack of five wire-thin, silver rings. These were held together by a flat clip, in the shape of a crescent moon.

"Oh," Armin's eyes widened. He counted the rings. "Five," he nodded in satisfaction. "Five rings. The crescent holds them together. The..."

He blinked. Sat very still. "You. Me. You and me...."

Eren nodded. "A chosen family," he said softly, "is a powerful thing. I am yours and you are mine. And you will always find something in your stocking. As long as I live."

It was a sticky kiss, sealed with tears, orange syrup and a promise.

 

 

 


End file.
